NFC (near field communication) is one of electronic tag (or a radio frequency tag) techniques. It is contactless communication technology using a frequency band of 13.56 MHz.
With the development of smart phones, smart phones having an NFC function are widely used. In particular, when a smart phone having the NFC function is brought close to an NFC tag in which a URL (uniform resource locator) involved with a certain web site is stored, the NFC tag directly provide the URL for the smart phone.
It is inconvenient for users to install and execute a special application including an NFC write function in their smart phones in order to change a certain URL that has already been written to an NFC tag. Moreover, when a URL of a web site corresponding to a first URL stored in an NFC tag is changed into a second URL, the NFC tag itself needs to be replaced with another NFC tag storing the second URL.
A beacon is a BLUETOOTH low energy (BLE) device that is able to access a mobile application program installed in a smart phone when a client carrying the smart phone enters a store. For instance, a beacon may be implemented as a small BLUETOOTH transceiver in a USB memory shape. When the beacon is inserted into a USB port of a personal computer or a power point in the store, the installation of the beacon is completed. A BLE-based beacon has a long transmission distance from 10 meters to 50 meters as compared to NFC and thus combines a location-based marketing platform and payment service. A beacon also directly provides a URL of a certain web site for a smart phone, and therefore, the beacon needs to be replaced when the web site is changed to another web site.